PS Malik speaks on: SPIRITUALITY IS NOT THE MORALITY

SPIRITUALITY IS NOT THE MORALITY

The morality, the ethics and the practices recommended by them are to regulate the behaviour of an individual towards others. These others may be the other members of the same society or the members of some others societies.

Subsequently societies developed their political set ups also to evolve new practices; enforce them and also punish for their violation. This branch assumed the name of the law and law Courts.

But this all including the morality, the ethics and the law were only to regulate the outer behaviour of a subject. This is all external; imposed from outside; enforced from outside and observed from outside. No society or system will object to your most contrary beliefs and notions so long as your external conduct is in conformity with its morals or laws. The societies have nothing to do with your internal fabric. They are in expectations of your external conduct to be in conformity with their practices – the morals or the ethics or the laws.

All morals, ethics and laws presuppose the existence of others. This existence of others is independent of anyone else in the society. The morals, ethics and the laws are all Bipolar Processes. It envisages YOU the doer and those OTHERS who would face the result of your deeds. These morals, ethics and the laws are the bridges bridging the individuals. For all the morals, ethics and the laws (hereinafter these will collectively be termed as External Trio) the existence of plurality of individuals is an essence. Without a plurality and the interconnections amongst that plurality this External Trio is void ab initio. It is meaningless. It loses its worth.

Now take the spirituality. But before entering the domain of spirituality the meaning of “Bipolar Process” ought to be made clear. This “Bipolar Process” was discussed in the preceding paragraphs while dealing with the issue of the External Trio. It was said there that this External Trio is essentially a Bipolar Process involving “You” and “the Others”.

The outside world enters you as sensations through your senses. Your mind processes these sensations and produces information or knowledge for you. All the empirical knowledge has two components. One is the sensation from the outer world and the other is the processed product of your mind.

When the concepts of one person are expressed to others it is through verbal conversation. In all verbal conversations there are generally two elements one relates to the fact regarding the sensation you received through your senses and the other is the mental element provided by your mind. When the facts are in contradistinction to each others a mental element is taken recourse of to overcome the stagnation of contradistinction of facts. “Ram steals bread to feed a starving person” involves two facts (may be moral or legal or ethical) in contradistinction to each other. The matter is resolved by a mental process giving more weight to one fact over the other.

These mental elements embedding the sensations are called thoughts. The thoughts are essentially based on sensations received by your senses. May be, some thoughts appear to be free from the empirical basis. But it is not so.

You may think of an animal with the tail like a horse and the body like a lion. But it is nothing more than a new permutation – combination of your sensation about tail, horse, lion and body etc. Your mind gives these combinations new names as a child gives different names to the different shapes made from the same clay.